


Five times Lovett put off going to bed, and one time he didn't.

by persuna



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:10:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23001811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/pseuds/persuna
Summary: "I think there’s a lot of people out there, in this hectic world of ours, quite secretly, falling asleep at night, on the couch, for reasons that are kind of confusing."
Relationships: Jon Favreau & Jon Lovett & Tommy Vietor, Ronan Farrow/Jon Lovett
Comments: 24
Kudos: 82





	Five times Lovett put off going to bed, and one time he didn't.

**Author's Note:**

> I discovered that this thing I wrote *checks watch* fourteen months ago was way more done than I thought it was when I abandoned it, so here it is, with no beta and therefore probably a lot of misplaced commas. 
> 
> This was inspired by Lovett's [spirited and not at all personal rant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rlpiAf5GlU), but somehow came out a lot more maudlin.

1\. 

The third time Lovett reads his sentence back to himself, not only can he not understand it, he can't even see it properly. Blinking and rubbing his eyes only takes care of the second problem; the blur of his computer screen resolves itself back into discernible letters, but it may or may not be a cogent riposte to disingenuous "concerns" that saving the planet from melting will be bad for the economy. At this time of night, it may or may not be English.

It would be so easy to list sideways into sleep. His body wants him to do it. Gravity wants him to do it. The ancient couch is literally trying to tip him over, its center sagging in a way that now seems more inviting than uncomfortable. But this is too important to blow it all on an ill-advised, 3am panic nap that would inevitably become two-thirds of a good night's sleep. Important for the country, obviously—he’s a big-time presidential speechwriter now, his words somehow in the mouth of the world's most powerful person, even if it's not the person he'd expected—but beyond that, this is important for Lovett personally. He has to take advantage of whatever anonymization fuck-up allowed him to inveigle himself into this job and prove that he's worth keeping around, and he has to do it before enough time passes that they could replace him with yet another identikit Obama bro without feeling guilty. This speech is the first thing he's been asked to draft solo, and if it's not good, he's probably going to be on the next bus back to New York.

Lovett hauls himself off the couch and goes to forage for Diet Coke in the fridge.

"When I said ASAP I meant more like, by Friday," says Favreau, when Lovett hands over the sheaf of paper. "Not that I'm complaining," he adds, perhaps sensing that this is not the dazzled gratitude Lovett had hoped for.

Lovett watches, unsure of if he's dismissed or not, while Favreau reads it through, making a dispiritingly large number of notes as he goes. He slashes a long line across the page. Lovett swallows. His heart is beating hard with, in proportions he can't quite parse, a combination of nerves, caffeine, and the effort it requires to keep standing when you've had this little sleep. He doesn't have a sense yet of what kind of boss Favreau is. He's definitely trying for nice, but he might be the kind of nice that's actually cowardice-too spineless to give useful feedback to some Hilary staffer he didn't really want to hire, the kind of boss who'd smile at you in the morning and throw you under the bus in the afternoon. There's no evidence to support this theory, except that it seems fundamentally implausible that anyone could be this handsome, this talented, and this happy to have Lovett as part of the team.

"It's a good first draft," Favreau says, handing the speech back to him. Lovett can strike ‘fear of giving useful feedback to his subordinates’ off his list of worries. At least thirty percent of the page is covered in scribbled words and arrows and question marks. "But I think the second draft will benefit from you having a bit more sleep."

"Huh?" says Lovett, too sticky with exhaustion to understand what Favreau means by that.

Instead of answering, Favreau stands up and comes out from behind his desk. He is close enough that Lovett has to tilt his head back to see his face properly. God, they're all so tall here. "What I mean is, you can relax a bit. You're doing great. And the meeting has been pushed back, so you've got time for a nap before we go over the game plan for CNN tomorrow." He's putting a hand under Lovett's elbow and steering him to the couch that's wedged in the corner of his too-small office.

Dazed for multiple reasons, Lovett goes, sits, and lets Favreau take the speech back out his hand. "Wake me in an hour?" he asks, still uncertain he's reading this right.

"Sooner if you snore," says Favreau. His attention is already back at his computer, and in the few seconds Lovett manages to stay awake once he closes his eyes, it doesn't seem like a trick.

Lovett still stays up till two that night editing his second draft, but he sets his alarm back an hour. Ten am is a reasonable time to arrive if you do it with a mostly finished product.

2\. 

Predictably, Jon is the last one to leave. He wraps Lovett up in a hug that Lovett doesn't even pretend to fight, and reels off a litany of things that he still expects Lovett's input on. Lovett isn't sure which one of them the pretense that they still work together is a kindness to. Maybe both of them.

"See you tomorrow," Tommy says, as he walks Jon out, and all too quickly the door is closing behind the last vestiges of Lovett's leaving party, his final event in DC over. His life in DC over. To really rub the symbolism in, Tommy clears a couple of handfuls of empty beer bottles off the coffee table and takes them into the kitchen. Lovett should help, but he doesn't. His body is melding into the couch. The time for him to leave will come, and they won't be able to peel him away from it. He'll have to stay, forever, part of the furniture.

It's incredibly stupid. Lovett is excited to go to LA, he is. He's sick of DC, most of what it stands for, and all but about six people in it. He's been given yet another shining, golden opportunity to fulfill one of his dreams

But God, he's also so fucking scared. What if he's made the worst mistake of his life? Who is he to think that presidential speechwriter won't be the pinnacle of his career? He's already failed once at being professionally funny. There's so much he's leaving behind: friends who are continuing on in the trenches without him, a hard-won understanding of DC’s swampy dynamics, a relationship that's almost certainly too young to last through a country-wide separation. He's funny for DC, that's been officially confirmed, but DC-funny and Hollywood-funny are two very different things.

He's not ready for it to be over. The party, the day, this period of success and certainty he's started taking for granted. Once he goes to bed, that's it. The curtain drawn on a whole era of his life. Fuck.

Lovett expects Tommy to start going to bed. It is, because Lovett makes poor choices for a living now, a Thursday, and everyone else has work that really matters waiting for them in the morning. He's not expecting Tommy to come back, two fresh beers in one of his giant hands. He gives Lovett's sprawled legs a gentle kick until Lovett draws them in and makes room for Tommy on the couch.

"Wanna watch something?" he asks, passing Lovett one of the beers.

The rush of fondness and appreciation, for Tommy not only knowing him well enough to tell that he's spiraling into some kind of destructive late-night crisis of doubt, but caring enough to distract and enable him, nearly renders Lovett speechless. Nearly.

"Sure". Still at the mercy of his fondness and appreciation he adds, "you can even pick," and tosses Tommy the remote.

Tommy catches it easily and starts flicking through the channels, no doubt looking for some godawful sports game or discussion of a sports game. It doesn’t matter. Whatever the dross Tommy settles on, the point is that the night still isn't over, and Lovett doesn't have to face his stripped-down room and the yawning uncertainty of the future. Not for a few more hours at least. He might even, judging by the lethargy already slipping over him, be able to fall asleep right here. 

3\. 

Lovett really is dozing when the sounds of Jon and Emily getting ready for bed register in his brain, the sudden blanketing quiet of the television being turned off, the gentle shift of Emily uncurling from her corner of the couch, the clink of plates and glasses being lifted off the coffee table. They're trying, but still, he wishes they’d tried harder. If they'd been a bit quieter, he could have genuinely spent the night on their sofa with no malice or forethought.

Instead, he's lying there like a kidnap victim trying to feign unconsciousness, buying time to go over his shitty options before he has to wake up and face his captors. It's a melodramatic simile, but it feels apt, in that his only real option is getting up and going home, and his home is starting to feel ever so slightly like a prison. The cushy, self-indulgent kind of his own making, but still, mentally, an oubliette of self-doubt.

God, even his thoughts are underbaked and overwritten. And even his thoughts fail to grapple properly with reality because he'd be pretty happy with having produced something underbaked and overwritten. A terrible first draft can be improved. A blank page gets you nowhere. 

From the kitchen comes the click and hum of the dishwasher being activated. That’s it. He should go home. He should walk those few yards across the road to his house and go to bed properly. However much that feels like it will be an admission of failure, staying here changes nothing except the quality of his sleep and his level of oral hygiene. Wherever he spends the night, the list of things he told himself he’d do today remains the same: the e-mails he was going to answer, the meetings he meant to arrange, the words he’s promised he’ll write, the trash that really, truly needs to be taken out. Fuck, he hasn’t even started that new game Ronan sent him. He’s procrastinating from his procrastination tools.

Inevitably, footsteps approach the couch. Lovett braces for a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. It will probably be gentle and well-meant, but firm. Emily is the kind of host whose first move when it's time to wrap a gathering up is ostentatiously changing into pajamas, and whose second move is flashing the lights on and off like there's an air raid. He’s not sure what the third move is. He’s never seen it come to that. 

Instead, something soft and warm envelops his whole body. A blanket. Someone tucks it in around his feet. 

“It’s eighty degrees,” Jon whispers, “he’ll be too hot under that.”

“Shhhh,” Emily hisses, louder than Jon’s whisper. Their footsteps recede to the stairs, but he swears he catches the faint echo of her saying, “it’s a metaphor.”

Lovett kicks his feet out from under the blanket, pulls the couch cushion properly horizontal under his head and smiles into it. 

4\. 

He's pretty sure he's the only one who can read the way that Ronan's eyes widen with the bad kind of surprise when Lovett agrees to head from the semi-official after-party to some random, off-book, after-after-party. But this gathering has been losing steam since Chrissy Teigen left, and Ronan knows it. 

The lady with great hair and, she’s assured them, a roof terrace they just _have_ to see, moves on to another cluster of New York’s crème de la crème, and Ronan takes the opportunity to pull him aside. 

“If this is about you being too boring to stalk, I promise, I’m into it.”

“Maybe I’m just enjoying the night.” Lovett scoops a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and presses it into Ronan’s hand.

“You mean the morning.” Ronan points his champagne flute at the window and doesn’t drink it. 

The sky is indeed lightening. “Well, the morning is young. And the sunrise will look fantastic from a roof terrace.”

“Your flight is in nine hours.” Ronan steps closer. “I was hoping we might spend some of those hours not wearing tuxes.”

With Ronan’s, even after all this time, startlingly handsome face so close, this does seem like a better plan than hoping that somehow these nine hours won’t end and he’ll never have to leave. “Our own exclusive after-after party?” 

Ronan’s reply is derailed by a truly epic yawn, sudden and wide enough that Lovett gets a detailed view of the inside of his pink mouth. He looks startled when it’s over, blinking like this has never happened to him before, but eventually rallies enough to drawl, “Exactly”. The attempt to be suave is less convincing than usual, coming so hard on the heels of his sleepy kitten impression. Lovett can’t even tell which part of the journey made him feel more tender. 

“Deal.” A slumber party is still technically a party, after all. 

5\. 

The cold press of Pundit’s nose on his chin wakes Lovett up from his doze, but he keeps his eyes closed. He doesn't need to open them to know where he is. He'd know the contours of his old frenemy the couch anywhere. 

The totally fine and normal end to yet another a productive day must have come, and now that he’s almost up, he should definitely go to bed. He’s been paying so little attention that he can’t even identify whatever the television is playing and his luck at back-pain roulette has been pretty bad recently. And he’s fine, he _is_, about going to bed with only Pundit for company. She is objectively a much better bed partner than the alternative, who takes up more space and sleeps a lot less.

He doesn’t get up. Going to bed may, he can admit to himself, have become harder since he moved into the new house. 

Seriously, on a very practical level, it has got more difficult. When he’s here, Ronan insists on them making the bed, even if he's leaving town right after breakfast and it doesn't seem like it's really his business. If he has the time, he tucks the covers right in under the mattress, smoothing the top out so it's like no one ever slept there. Come night-time, Lovett has to wrestle the bed for the right to climb into it. Even when Ronan hasn’t had his way with the bed, Lovett still has to remove several decorative pillows, and then, for his sins, put them back in the morning. No one warned him that at the age of thirty six a switch would flip in his brain and leaving a small pile of cushions on his bedroom floor would bother him. 

Pundit escalates to snuffling his ear. Lovett keeps his eyes closed, committing to a battle of wills with his dog. It’s not just about prising the bedding open. Decorative pillows or no decorative pillows, his bed is more comfortable than ever, a blush pink dream. Each side of the mattress adjusts itself independently and the sheets, picked out with Ronan’s taste for the finer things, are a testament to how much more comfortable money really does make things. And therein lies the rub. It’s a place designed to be theirs, rather than his. One day. Sometimes he doesn’t want to get in it alone. 

+. 1

"Jonathan," a familiar voice says from the doorway. 

Lovett’s eyes snap open, and the full memory of his current living situation reasserts itself, a warm, golden glow through his whole body. Ronan’s here. One day is today. 

"Come to bed.” 

Lovett goes to bed.


End file.
